


the only appropriate state of the heart

by manywheels



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Fluff, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Surprise Party, tltexchange2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:01:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28568910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manywheels/pseuds/manywheels
Summary: Harrow loves Gideon. Gideon loves Christmas. Harrow hates Christmas, but she does, as we've said, love Gideon. So Harrow's going to throw Gideon a surprise Christmas party, and she's going to make it the best Christmas party Gideon's ever been at.Written for the TLT Holiday Exchange 2020.*“I have to hold a Christmas party. On Christmas Eve. For Gideon. And it has to be a surprise, and I need your help,” she said, hoping that if she spoke the words quickly enough they wouldn’t sound bizarre.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	the only appropriate state of the heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [frostryn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostryn/gifts).



> I'm grateful to maybem, ri, and lapis for helping me know what does and doesn't count as fluff.

Cambridge in November was dark and dreary, but living in Aunt Mercy’s house was far superior to being in halls or - god forbid - rooming with some of the other mature students. They were a nice lot, but only in small doses and only when he felt up to it. Which was why he was sitting on his favourite couch, the radio playing some Brahms, his hands wrapped around a mug of tea (his third, but it had been a long day so he was allowed) when the doorbell rang.

Aunt Mercy’s house was far enough from the center of town that getting to it was a hike, and Silas liked it that way. It meant that very few people ever bothered, and most of them were related to him in one way or another. But at half six, on a Thursday? It could only be one person. Muttering under his breath, he set the blanket he was lying under aside and made his way to the front door. If Harrow had come to see him, she must really be in trouble.

***

Harrow had taken a bus and then walked twenty minutes to get to Silas’. She was sometimes jealous of him - he was on good enough terms with some of his family that his aunt had taken him in. But between the man who’d introduced himself at freshers week as his nephew, and the woman who’d taken one look at Harrow and declared she was not as pretty as her long-dead grandmother, it was possible neither of them really had anything worth being jealous of. And she had Gideon. Silas just sat in his house.

Still, nobody else was going to help her with the dilemma she was having, and Silas at least would know well enough to not ask stupid questions. So she stood at his door for ten minutes, her hands in the pockets of her jacket, worrying at her scarf, adjusting her hat, before ringing the bell. 

A minute later the door opened, and Silas’ face - grumpy as an unfed baby - peeked around it.

“Get in, Harrow, it’s too bloody cold for this,” he said. She hurried in, and he shut the door behind her. As they walked through the corridor the scent of chamomile wafted in from the living room, and for a second she remembered the moment that she met Gideon again, in Silas’ room, drinking tea and discussing the rugby.

“Is there any tea left?” Harrow asked, hating how pathetic she sounded.

“No, but I can make some more,” Silas said, waving off her protests. 

They settled in his living room, mugs in their hands, and Harrow took a minute to settle herself. Whatever else you could say about Silas’ many faults, he knew how to keep his mouth shut and let a silence fill the air. But after a point it became impossible for her to say nothing and her mouth opened, seemingly of its own accord.

“I have to hold a Christmas party. On Christmas Eve. For Gideon. And it has to be a surprise, and I need your help,” she said, hoping that if she spoke the words quickly enough they wouldn’t sound bizarre.

Silas looked at her, thoroughly flummoxed, like the time someone had told him about shotgunning beers.

(It had been Gideon, of course, the week after Harrow had found her in Silas’ room, teaching him how to stick a key into a can and telling him it was a rite of passage. "You're being baptised, Si," she said, and somehow that convinced him it was worth doing.)

“Harrow, I’m the last person on the planet you should be asking. I’m going to spend Christmas alone in my living room. Maybe I'll see my neighbours. With any luck Aunt Mercy will still be in Trinidad, and Colum will be in Shropshire with the rest of my family. What help do you expect me to be?” he said.

“You have a house! You’re the only person I know with an entire house all to yourself, Silas. And your Aunt won’t mind if you have some friends over, and Gideon will never suspect it,” Harrow said.

“Why do you need this to be a surprise? Can’t you just go to the pub or something? That sounds more like Gideon’s thing, to be honest,” Silas said. 

And the truth of it was, Gideon would have been perfectly happy with going down to the pub, or getting a curry and eating it while watching the telly, but Harrow wanted to do something more. She remembered Gideon at thirteen, screaming and yelling, asking why they couldn’t do a proper Christmas. Her parents had never entertained her, and Harrow knew after Gideon had left she’d never done anything of the sort either. But she couldn’t really tell Silas all this.

“It’s complicated, okay? I just want to do this for her, and she gets so excited about surprises,” Harrow said.

Silas looked at her, his stern face dark as midnight, and shook his head.

“I can’t. Christmas - “ he started, but Harrow cut him off.

“Silas, you owe me for Easter last year and you know it,” she said, and she knew she had him. They'd been the only two people in their year who could have fit into the Easter Rabbit costume, and Silas had outright refused to wear it. She was never going to live it down.

Silas’ eyes went hard, for a second, and then his face fell. “Okay. Okay, we’ll do it. It’ll be worth it for the look on her face, I suppose. And we could get a tree,” he said, looking around the room.

He was right. It’d be worth it, for her.

***

Gideon sauntered into the cafe through the entrance that led into the park, which was why she wasn't quite close enough to hear what Harrow was saying to her academic advisor and his partner. She'd worked on that saunter for years, and she wasn't about to stop looking fantastic so she could spy on her delightful girlfriend. Harrow's back was to her, anyway, and it looked like Magnus had just made a terrible joke so it probably wasn't too important. She and Harrow were both very fond of Eden's Garden, though some of their friends (Ianthe, mostly) refused to join them and insisted they come into the center of town instead.

Abigail, on the other hand, looked up from her coffee and spotted Gideon instantly. She always had liked Abigail a little more than Magnus. It was probably the way she got really angry when anyone picked on Harrow. The fact that the grey in her hair made her a knockout didn't hurt, either.

"Gideon! What a surprise. I thought you were at rugby practice?" Abigail called out. Harrow started, which was normal for Harrow when she realised someone had been watching her without her noticing.

"Practice let out early, I think Marta has a date or something. You're not secretly plotting to publicly embarrass me or anything, are you?" Gideon said. 

"What? What a stupid thing to say, Griddle. If your ridiculous collection of adult magazines hasn't embarrassed you, what possibly could?" Harrow said, turning around to look at her. Magnus made a pained face. He'd been witness to enough ribbing between the two of them to know that it wouldn't end unless someone else made them, and almost nobody was willing to get between them.

"Harrow dear, I think you're overthinking it. It sounds like you have a good plan. I'm sure it'll be fine, and we'll be there to support you," Abigail said. Admittedly Abigail was one of those people who was very happy to get in between any squabbles. It didn't always work - half the time Harrow ended up yelling at her too - but in this case it seemed to deflate her. It was like watching the air go out of an annoyed balloon.

"What are you overthinking now, bone nerd?" Gideon asked, sitting down next to Harrow. She waved at the waitress, who was already bringing her a cinnamon coffee and some shortbread. 

"Nothing!" Harrow said. It was a little vehement even for her, but she always got a little tired after talking to Quinn. Gideon grabbed her hand and Harrow relaxed almost immediately. Even a year after they first reconciled, she still marvelled at it. She waved at the waitress, who discreetly added some of Harrow's favourite banana bread to their tray. 

"I was just giving Harrow some advice about her essay. Which is about, er, religious ceremonies. In Ancient Mesopotamia. Quite interesting stuff, you know. They used to have twelve days of celebrations for the New Year!" Magnus said. Gideon nodded politely as their snacks and coffee arrived, and thought about how Harrow had taken Ancient Civilisations 1 last year, and hated every second of it. They sat with Magnus and Abigail for another hour, talking about festival holidays all over the world, and Harrow didn't let go of her hand except to butter her bread.

***

Ianthe could not believe Gideon fucking Nav had crashed her weekly lunch with her sister. It was bad enough she had to come down to London and hang out with Corona's girlfriend occasionally.

"Well, yeah," Corona said, sheepishly. "You know your friend Gideon? She rang me last week, said she wanted to speak to me about something. I told her I couldn't but she said she could only come to town today because she's busy next weekend and the weekend after is Christmas, and then she said she'd really appreciate it if Cam could be there as well," she finished.

"Gideon? Gideon _fucking_ Nav?! Why the fuck is she speaking to you?" Ianthe said. Her voice nearly broke at the end, but she was calm. She was very calm.

"Well, she can tell you herself. Isn't that her outside?" Camilla said, pointing out the window. The moron with the huge arms and the sunglasses was in fact standing right outside the window, looking at their table. It was a cold, depressing day, and she was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and aviators. How anyone could be fooled into thinking she had more than three braincells was beyond her.

Gideon waved at Corona, and walked towards the entrance.

"You couldn't have warned me?" Ianthe hissed. 

"She said you already knew what she wanted to talk to us about. I figured that it must be fine," Corona said, ice in her voice. Fuck, now Corona was pissed with her too.

"Hey lads. Thanks for having me, I was going mad wandering around the Natural History Museum looking for something nice to get Harrow," Gideon said, as she flopped onto the chair next to Ianthe. Her drawl was even more grating at close range. 

"Oh, you're going out with Harrow? I didn't know that," Corona said after making introductions, her brows wrinkling at Ianthe. Ianthe pursed her lips and busied herself by looking at her phone.

"Oh yeah, we've been together for a year and a half now. It's great. Genuinely the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I'm counting the time I saw Anna Friel naked on stage," Gideon said. There was a huskiness to her voice that made Ianthe want to claw her eyes out, but she just kept looking at Instagram.

Gideon opened a menu and her eyebrows shot up. "Huh, you weren't kidding about this place being expensive, " she said.

"Oh, don't worry about it, the head chef is a friend of mine so we're getting this meal on the house. Get whatever you like," Corona said. That was enough for both Camilla and Gideon to order what seemed like everything on the menu. Ianthe continued to ignore them. She just had to survive for an hour and then she could get Babs to text her a fake emergency.

"Anyway, I just wanted to invite both of you 'round to a friend's for Christmas Eve, I know Harrow's already invited Ianthe so I thought it'd be nice if you came too. Your parents are in Singapore anyway, right?" Gideon said. Fuck, wasn't it supposed to be a surprise? Harrow had been very insistent that Ianthe had to keep it a secret.

"Oh I'd love to come! I don't know if Camilla has plans though," Corona said.

"Well, it was going to just be me and P, but if you don't mind him tagging along we could all come?" Camilla said, the bint. She could've just declined, but apparently nobody was making Ianthe's life easy today.

"P is Camilla's roommate. He's a junior doctor at Guy's Hospital this year. Actually, doesn't Harrow really like bones? There's this old operating theatre near there that's been turned into a museum, I bet you could get something cool there," Corona said.

"Oh that sounds amazing! Yeah, bring your friend, the more the merrier," Gideon said. They proceeded to talk about ideas for a Christmas present for Harrow, and as the food arrived Ianthe sank further and further into her chair.

Two whole hours later - Babs had chickened out and said he didn't want to piss Corona off - they finally wound up. Ianthe had drunk four margaritas and was sober as a black hole, but the rest of them seemed tipsy enough. Corona's chef friend came out and said a few words, and Ianthe had kind of nodded at what seemed like the correct times. 

She said her goodbyes and walked resolutely in a direction that she knew no one else was going to go in, and proceeded in what was almost certainly some kind of circle. That was probably why, when she turned left for what might have been the seventh time, she ran smack dab into the one person she didn't want to see.

"Hey," Gideon said, leaning against a phone booth. "You know you've gone past this sex shop twice in the last ten minutes?" In the window behind her was a mannequin that had a sparkly dildo attached to it. It looked about as happy as Ianthe felt, in that moment.

"Why can't you just leave me the fuck alone?" Ianthe said.

"Well, I was going to, but you literally walked past me without noticing, and I wasn't about to let you do that a second time," Gideon said.

"Yeah, well, you look like a clown in those aviators, so I thought you were a street magician," Ianthe said. 

"Ha. Sure. Listen, I wanted to talk to you - " Gideon started, before Ianthe interrupted her.

"Whatever it is, I don't care," she said, turning around.

The back of her jacket jerked as Gideon grabbed it.

"No, you're going to fucking listen to me. Harrow's been planning this Christmas party for a month. I _know_ she's talked to you about it, and I _know_ you've given her some idiotic excuse. I came down to London to invite your sister and her girlfriend so you have someone to talk to at the party, but I'll be fucked if I let you fuck around with her feelings again. There's no good goddamned reason she likes you but Harrow insists you're her friend and you're going to come to that party if I have to tie you up and put you in a cab myself. She deserves just one fucking Christmas with all her friends and she's going to get it. Understand?" she said.

Ianthe grunted as she wrenched her jacket out of Gideon's grasp. Nobody on the street gave them a second look. Lesbians fighting in Soho was the least interesting thing happening around them by a long way.

"Fine. Fine, I'll come to the stupid party, and I'll deal with Corona and fucking Camilla. Is that all?" she said.

"Well, because you're being such a cunt about it, you're going to come with me and we're going to buy Harrow Christmas presents. And if you keep bitching, I promise I will tell everyone about the time you got in a fistfight with Professor Augustine," Gideon said. 

Fuck. The old bastard had deserved it, but if word got out he'd let her off for assaulting a teacher there'd be nothing she could do about it. 

"Fine! Fuck, I can't believe I'm going shopping with you," Ianthe said. Gideon just grinned at her, and said "Don't you worry, you're going to have a great time."

***

Abigail said a silent prayer of thanks for the fact that Silas' neighbour had arrived earlier in the day to help with decorations. Silas had been pretty adamant that the tree was going to be unadorned except for the star at the top, and that they would only listen to the King's College Choir the entire time, but Dulcinea had wrestled his phone away and made him play her Christmas playlist instead. It really wasn't the holidays if you weren't playing Mariah Carey on loop.

Magnus had cajoled Silas into accepting that a bare Christmas tree was worse than no tree at all, and they were now putting up some decorations that had been in a box in the study labelled "Christmas Stuff". Say what you like about Mercy - and Abigail did - it was true she had great taste. There was a Santa Claus that had been glued on top of an Enterprise that had her and Magnus cackling for twenty minutes. 

Most everybody had arrived - Harrow's friend Ianthe had just walked in with her sister and her friends that Abigail found out were thankfully not more toffs - when the bell rang. It was exactly seven. 

Silas, for once looking like a man in his twenties and not in his sixties, walked to the door. As he opened it, Gideon's rugby friend Marta shushed everyone, her eyes twinkling as she turned the lights off. There was some muttering at the door, and when the three of them came back into the living room, it was pitch perfect - Marta turned the lights back on, Magnus's booming voice led the charge, and the entire room shouted "SURPRISE!".

Given Harrow had them practice it for half an hour, Abigail felt it was the least they could have done.

Gideon's eyes, golden in the yellow light, went bright and watery. Of course, she had figured it out - Magnus never did like lying to his students and he was consequently terrible at it - but even so to be in a room full of people who had gladly come together, on Christmas Eve no less, was special. Gideon swept Harrow and Silas into a hug, and rested her lips for the briefest moment on Harrow's. They were never much for public affection, apart from holding hands and sitting next to one another.

"Merry Christmas, guys," she said, in a tone of voice almost quiet and wondrous, looking back at the rest of them. Silas handed her some mulled wine, and as the party resumed he came to stand next to Abigail.

"God, when Harrow said she wanted to do a surprise party I was not sure it'd be worth it, but she was right. I think Gideon's crying?" he said. Abigail patted his hand. He and Harrow had much in common, including a total inability to deal with visible emotional vulnerability. On the other hand, Harrow was dealing with Gideon admirably. They were curled up on the couch, now, Gideon's head on Harrow's shoulder, looking at the fire and laughing.

Dulcinea and the boy in the glasses seemed to be getting on incredibly well, if his blush was anything to go by. Ianthe and Corona and Cam were inspecting the tree, and it seemed for once like Ianthe was getting along with her sister's girlfriend. Magnus was telling Marta and her friend Judith about the time they had gone to the Pyrenees - it was a story that never got old. 

And in the middle of it all, there was a single, perfect moment, when Gideon got a wicked look in her eyes, and right when she was least expecting it she pressed her hands to Harrow's face. 

"Gideon, you bastard, your hands are bloody freezing!" she said, and the room filled with laughter and song.

* * *

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> title from pterry's thief of time:
> 
> "Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it."
> 
> find me and my HCs for this AU on tumblr [here.](https://indigocotton.tumblr.com/)


End file.
